20 meanders in Kiyoshi Teppei's brain
by Phoenix Boy
Summary: In which Kiyoshi winds up both his friends and his enemies


1. Hyuuga asks him, sometimes, why he came to Seirin at all, when he was used to a strong basketball school. Kiyoshi never gives him the same answer twice, and Hyuuga glares at him every time.

2. The real answer is mostly that there were other things he wanted to try, and that he didn't want to leave his grandparents on their own just to go to a more famous school.

3. It's not that he didn't get offers. Shuutoku really want him – and the coach reminds him every time they bump into each other from then on in. Going to Shuutoku would be like going back to Shouei. No one at Shuutoku would ever ask why he couldn't play point guard and centre at the same time.

4. It was a bit of a shock when Izuki recognised him the first time, because Kiyoshi never actually thought of himself as famous (after all, they never won anything). When they all laughed about it a few months later, Riko tilted her head back, looked up and up at him and asked how exactly they were supposed to miss him. Then she dropped her eyes and muttered something about how his harmonica playing was so bad she wished she could completely block it from her brain.

5. He does wonder what Hyuuga did to inspire such loyalty in Riko. She's astonishingly competent and completely self-sufficient and Hyuuga seems like a ridiculous person to latch on to.

6. Not that he can talk.

7. And in fact, he might be twice as bad.

8. Kiyoshi has always thought Hyuuga is hilarious. It was an unfortunate first impression (from Hyuuga's perspective) because Kiyoshi looks at him and sees a mop of badly bleached hair every time. This is one of the reasons why Hyuuga always sees him laughing to himself.

9. The other is that Kiyoshi likes to laugh. It is much better than crying.

10. He laughs a lot once he comes back. The new juniors are hilarious. Maybe he should have started showing up earlier (even if he couldn't play), because it's marvellous fun to be able to stand around looking wise and doling out advice like 'you should learn to shoot' and telling the guy who no one notices that 'the only thing you have mastered is intimidation'.

11. He would have had to be very sneaky about it, though, because Riko banned him from practice with a very stern look, and a threat to have them pelt him with basketballs until he left.

12. If Kagami is one of the most promising players Kiyoshi has ever seen, Kuroko is one of the most interesting. He has issues, but he's fifteen and that comes with the territory. Kiyoshi has never talked to him, but he thinks Akashi must have been a crazy twelve year old to drag Kuroko up into Teikou's regulars.

13. Kiyoshi actually feels sorry for the so-called Generation of Miracles, because they are playing and playing with nothing to make them aware of how much they love it. He almost hugs Murasakibara when he ties his hair back and actually plays rather than moping in front of the hoop.

14. Murasakibara is adorably clueless and Kiyoshi would adopt him for Seirin if he thought people would let him get away with it.

15. As they move further and further through the tournament year, it feels like running faster and faster along a collapsing bridge that tumbles everything behind him down into a bottomless cavern. Kiyoshi doesn't know what he's going to do once basketball is no longer there. (Hope, he thinks, and pray, and wish desperately to get lucky for once).

16. The others try and avoid the subject, if they aren't using it to get the first years fired up, but Kiyoshi makes sure he's always smiling if someone does touch on it. The kind of wide smile that makes Hyuuga scowl at him. (Hyuuga is usually grumpy, so no one else notices).

17. And if he is a little clingier this year, no one will say anything about it. The first years probably think he's always been that driven, and maybe he has, but he's long past the time when he cared about showing it. Riko always notices when his knees start trembling, and sometimes she keeps quiet.

18. No one mentions the times that he cries after matches, either.

19. The best parts of the year, though, better even than the basketball, maybe, are the times after the matches where he and Hyuuga and Riko ditch their team and go back to his grandparents for homemade dorayaki (nowhere near Riko's dad) and stay up long past their bedtimes. Riko and Hyuuga are even scarier at practice on the days after and Kiyoshi laughs and laughs.

20. And every so often he gets to stand on the court in his Seirin uniform, eyes on the hoop and his team around him. And then, whether he says it out loud or not, 'Let's have fu~un!'


End file.
